By now, we all know that the TSA has the authority to confiscate obviously dangerous items-- fully-gassed chainsaws, butcher's knives, four-ounce bottles of lotion. But Reason magazine has the story of what happens to some of those items that fall in that ambiguous, in-between area of what is acceptable:

"When it comes to knives and scissors, items with blades shorter than four inches are supposed to be allowed, but individual agents have wide discretion to ban anything they feel might present a safety threat. As a result, there are thousands of ostensibly OK scissors that end up in the TSA equivalent of Gitmo."

In a courageous act of defiance, or protest (or something), one man fashions those would-be "weapons" into works of art.

"The D.C.-based artist Christopher Locke buys confiscated scissors that belong in the "grey area between what should be allowed on the plane, and what wasn't allowed" and re­fashions them into strangely disquieting spiders and bugs, viewable online at heartlessmachine.com."

Check out Locke's gallery of scissor-spiders here.

Filed under: Arts and Culture, United States, Airports